"Up-Date": Monday 28 May 2001

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The origin of the name “BRUINVIS”(porpoise)

HNLMS BRUINVIS, is the first Dutch submarine to be allowed to have this name. The second chamber gave in 1984 the green light to build the second series of the Walrusclass submarines. Therefore a new name needed to be found, as at that time no existing name of a predecessor was available. The former captain of the submarine squadron held a referendum amongst the submariners to find a suitable name; the unanimous winner was the name “Orka”. If the admirality sanctioned this name, then this boat would have been called Orka. However, during the middle of the eighties, the aggressive nature of the name did not fall in line within current ministry of defense policies, and therefore in the national interest a more peaceful name needed to be found! Another reason was that the Dutch translation of Orka is “Zwaardwalvis” or “Zwaardvis”(swordfish) and that name was already used by another boat. However, the most important reason of the admirality in the decision to choose the name bruinvis was that porpoises are very frequent visitors in the Northsea and along the Dutch coastline. According to old chronicles even within the canals of Amsterdam.

After research within the navy archives it appeared that the name BRUINVIS was used up to 12 times in the royal Dutch navy, though they were primarily small ships without any history nor battle honours.

Within the history of the Dutch east India company (VOC) and Dutch West India company (WIC) the name BRUINVIS was used on three ships of the “greenland shipping era”. Comparisons are made with these three ships of the whaling era.

Just like the historical BRUINVIS’s during the whaling era, they hunted in packs for underwater fish just like the mammal porpoise.

These are obvious comparable traits between task and tactic of the submarine BRUINVIS.

The only way the Dutch could profit for over 200 years from whaling with such a small fleet, was to be a strong coherent team with the necessary initiative in a fast changing environment. These are also the same traits to be found within the submarine service.

Source: speech from the captain of the submarine squadron Captain Fanoy Royal Dutch Navy at commissioning.